I've been covering the video game space for 20 years for outlets like The Washington Post, Reuters, CNET, AOL, Wired Magazine, Yahoo!, Entertainment Weekly, NBC, Variety, Maxim, EGM, and ESPN. I serve as EIC of GamerHub.tv and co-founder of GamerHub Content Network, a video game and technology video syndication network that works with Tribune and DBG to syndicate game videos and editorial around the world. I also cover games for outlets like The Hollywood Reporter, IGN, Geek Monthly, CNN, DigitalTrends and PrimaGames.

Hollywood director Stewart Hendler (Sorority Row) has become the go-to guy for Web series. After working with X-Men director Bryan Singer on H+, Hendler headed to Vancouver to bring a 90-minute prequel story to the Halo 4 universe with Forward Unto Dawn. Hendler had a Hollywood cast that included Anna Popplewell (Chronicles of Narnia), Daniel Cudmore (The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 2) and Tom Green (Thirst) to help bring gamers the closest thing that they’re going to get to a Halo movie. The series is available online, but it’s included in an extended cut on Microsoft’s Halo 4: Collector’s Edition. Hendler talks about the Web series and discusses the new game, as well as the Hollywood potential for a big screen movie, in this exclusive interview.

What kind of pressure was there for you guys to bring Halo to live action?

Dude, it’s the highest pressure I’ve ever felt in my career, and we try to shy away from the comparison to the Halo movie. We’re honored to be in the space. The length of our project is feature length, but we are not trying to be the official Halo movie. We’re dipping our toes in the narrative water and giving the fans a little taste to see if they like it.

Where does this story fit into the overall Halo universe?

We’re set about 25 years earlier than most people know in the Halo timeline. The games are set when Chief is a developed super soldier who is a hero already. We’re diving backwards into the early part of his development and focus on a specific battle where a group of cadets who are training at an elite academy — the West Point of the Halo universe — are suddenly attacked by an alien they had no idea existed. Along with Chief, they have to fight their way out to survive.

What was the production like in Vancouver?

We shot for about 25 days in Vancouver, which is like a short movie schedule or a long pilot schedule, depending on glass half full or glass half empty. We went up there because there’s a great film infrastructure in Vancouver, but there’s also a campus called Simon Fraser University, which was built in the late ‘60s and has this incredible, brutal concrete architecture. It actually has the highest suicide rate of any campus in Canada because it is so bleak, but that worked in our favor because it really feels like something from outer space. We based the production on finding that and spread out in a radius from there.

What was it like working with the Warthog?

That is the only warthog in the world. It was actually built originally by WETA for some of the Halo 3 shorts that were made by Neill Blomkamp, which are awesome. They let us use it so we shipped it all the way across the Pacific and up to Vancouver and gave it a new paint job to give it a specific role in the campus. It’s the general’s warthog on the campus. We put it through its paces and tried to break it as much as we could, which was awesome.

How did you share digital assets with 343 Industries?

Everything was hyper scrutinized to be on track with everything that’s in the game, so we shared assets, and in some cases we up-rezed them to hit the film resolution that we need to do in the different levels of texturing and rendering. But everything is from the game and then went through a very specific approval process to make sure that we got every detail checked and double checked.

What are your thoughts about how far videogame technology has come in the visuals that we’re seeing in Halo 4?

They’re pretty epic. It’s actually really interesting trying to make something that looks beautiful and cinematic and seeing this video game chasing up on our heels. It’s amazing. I think video games, in general, have come an incredible way in the last few years. But the Halo 4 stuff that we see is ridiculous. We’re not hoping to best it. We’re just hoping to be another slice of that universe and tell a story in a different way.

How did you work with 343 Industries on this project?

Super closely. From the very beginning, this has been a very synergistic project. We always had at least one, sometimes two members of the 343 team on set with us collaborating and coordinating, fact checking the script. And the concept was built from the ground up with Frank O’Connor and Kevin Grace, and Matt McClosky, the major players in the Halo world.

What’s your own background when it comes to video games?

I am a video game agnostic except for Halo. I discovered Halo. I wasn’t much of a gamer until about 10 years ago, and I was introduced to the game by my roommates. I usually stayed out of the way when they were playing whatever, but when they started playing Halo I found myself suddenly lurking in the room. I became an avid fan of the Halo franchise that way, but that’s sort of it. I only play the Halo gamees. When I got the first email about this job from a producer I worked with on a previous project, she told me it was a top secret project in the vein of a bunch of games that were competitors to Halo. I wrote back that I wasn’t interested, but if you were to say Halo, that would be a different story. And so my phone rang immediately, and the rest was history.

We saw Warner Bros. greenlight a new Mortal Kombat movie after a successful Web series. What impact do you hope Forward Unto Dawn has on getting a Halo movie made?

I think everybody wants to see the Halo movie made. It’s a big deal, so we’re just waiting to see how this is received. If it’s well received by fans, I think the next conversations may have something to do with where is the next step. And that could be a movie, it could be another season of the series, who knows? I can’t say yet.

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Well, it’s probably not important, but I thought this http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/opinion/the-permanent-militarization-of-america.html?_r=0 might be interesting. Considering about all video games are militarialistical. Who’s purse strings are pulled the tightest?

You report that the university has the “highest suicide rate of any campus in Canada” I’m not sure this is true, more of an urban myth I suspect; thus I would be interested to see the data source that supports this very damaging quote.

you have to make a halo movie. five episodes of forward unto dawn is not nearly enough. i first played halo when i was twelve and have read most of the books. if you make this movie please make fall of reach as well :D

I’m the Dir of Health and Counselling at Simon Fraser University. I would like to correct the suicide rate comment made by Director Stewart Hendler concerning SFU. There is no evidence that any of SFU’s campuses have the highest suicide rate in Canada. Our survey results over the years consistently place SFU students among the national norm on related mental health issues. Matter of fact there has not been a reported on campus suicide in many years.

Universities across North America take this topic very seriously and the reduction of the issue down to architecture is a too simple. SFU has a vibrant community and several initiatives not just to address the needs of people experiencing negative mental health issues, but also to bolster the attributes that build a flourishing community and support student wellbeing.

The architecture connection is an urban myth. That being said, I’m glad Director Hendler was able to find an appropriate place to shoot Halo. Go Master Chief.